Dural the Magic Trader

Looking for a charm to ward off evil spirits or the claw of a marsh dragon? Need some willow bark for your headaches or a potion to cure a lack of virility? Got a weird looking ring and you don’t know what it is? Dural could be your man.

Appearance

Dural is an old man, now well into his sixties, but still reasonably healthy, if a little slow moving these days, and his mind is as keen as ever it was.

He dresses very much as the respectable shopkeeper, from his dark trousers, white shirt and conservative neck tie to his neatly trimmed greying hair and clean shaven face.

At first sight there is not the slightest suggestion that he has arcane powers. However all the important people "in the business" know him for what he truly is.

Background

The son of a humble clerk, the young Dural had little money and fewer prospects. However he did have a keen mind and a natural talent for arcane lore.

Putting his talents to use he applied for, and obtained, a scholarship to the University Magica, the kingdoms’ premier university of the arcane arts and the most prestigious seat if learning in the known world. One of his main claims to fame is that he was the first commoner to enter the University on this basis and actually graduate (there had been previous scholarship students but most had dropped out for financial reasons).

With a bursary paying his tuition fees (he was a promising enough student to justify such), Dural still had the problem of keeping body as soul together during his studies, and he again turned to his arcane knowledge for support (after all he had little else to sell). Initially this involved locating minor magical items for those who required them (for a commission of course) and later trading in such things directly.

Once he became a little more skilled he began to supplement his income by casting spells, making potions, and enchanting minor magical items. There are some who claim he invented Appearance Enhancers, although there is no direct evidence for this and he himself always denies it if asked.

After graduating (with distinction) he was then faced with the need to make a living. While most of classmates went off to become court mages to some minor lord or other (you simply can’t claim to be a nobleman if you don’t have a court mage), Dural simply bought a barrow and began trading in enchanted objects, alchemical potions, and magical supplies in the marketplace.

Being one of the few people in the business who knew what he was doing and actually supplying what he promised, he soon earned a reputation for honestly and reliability. His business prospered accordingly and he soon bought a shop in the market square. He has been trading there ever since.

Of course Dural’s success did not go unnoticed by the charlatans and con-artists who dominated the trade in magical items at that time, a state of affairs that led directly to his hiring his first bodyguard (after one too many threats). It also led to his founding of the Magical Traders Association, of which he is still Guildmaster. The guild now regulates all "independent trade in spells, divinations, and enchantments, as well as magical or alchemical preparations of all types", as the guilds’ Articles of Incorporation put it.

Despite the obvious difference in social background, Dural has stayed in touch with most of his old classmates (although these days there are few enough left and getting fewer all the time). Consequently he can count some of the finest wizards in the land as his friends.

Dural the man

Dural is a mage and alchemist of some skill, although by no means brilliant at either discipline he is a competent and reliable practitioner. He is also a canny trader and expert negotiator, so conning him is virtually impossible (it has been done, but not often, and not easily). A basically honest man, he will trade fair with anybody who is fair with him. On the other hand, he would feel no qualms about fleecing anybody stupid enough to try and con him.

Being a scholarship student himself, Dural has some empathy with talented but impoverished young people unable to pay for an education and he will often help them out if he can, usually by employing them as shop assistants. This of course has the added benefit of ensuring that his staff understand the magic they are selling. Many a young wizard owes his career to Dural’s aid and most like to stay in touch with him after they graduate.

Dural’s Magic Shop

Dural’s shop is divided into two main rooms, the trading counter in the front and a small laboratory in the back.

The trading counter has a pretty standard "village shop" feel to it, containing a single long counter just inside the door with rows of shelves and cupboards behind. There are always two assistants behind the counter (usually students at the University Magica earning a little much needed cash) and a store guard (basic fighter type) to protect the staff from violence and the stock from thieves.

The shelves contain all manner of magical stock, ranging from basic supplies (herbs, coloured candles, etc), to minor magical items (such as Appearance Enhancers), most standard potions, texts on arcane lore, and basic spell descriptions. More exotic or rare items (like Crystallised Dragon Blood) can often be found here also, or if not Dural can usually get hold of it (he has a LOT of contacts).

The back room laboratory is where Dural himself is usually found. Here he spends much of his time dabbling in the arcane arts, although to be honest his experiments rarely produce anything either useful or sale-able. That however is not really the point, to Dural mucking around with some new alchemical formula or unusual enchantment is more of a hobby than a professional endeavour.

Roleplaying Notes

Dural rarely deals with customers himself these days, after all his staff are competent enough and the business more or less runs itself. He normally only gets involved if a customer wants something unusual or has something to trade that he has not seen before.

However, he will (for a price of course) assess the function of a magical item and he is considered to be amongst the foremost authorities in this area. This can take considerable time since he sometimes likes to experiment with it, especially if it is unusual or unknown to him (it’s kind of a de-facto rule that any item must be left at the shop for several days for identification).

Appearance enhancers are amongst the few magical items that really are always jewellery of one form or another, although this appears to be more of a cultural tradition than a magical requirement. Most are enchanted rings, although broaches, studs, bracelets, anklets, lockets, and a variety of other items are not unknown, and all of these seem to work equally as well.

The magics required to make an appearance enhancer are fairly easy to enchant (any first year magic student can do it), so they are one of the more common magical items. They are also relatively inexpensive (as magical items go), typically only 10-20% higher than the price of the base item, making them available to all but the poorest members of society.

Their easy availability and relatively low price have made them into something of a "must have" item in most civilised cultures, all but replacing the cosmetics industry while providing a steady income for traders in magical trinkets the world over.

Magical Properties

Appearance enhancers allow the user to cast a range of cantrips, glamours, and petty illusions designed to produce minor alterations in his/her appearance. Effectively allowing the user to wear a face that accords with current fashions, although repeated castings may be required to continuously maintain the effect.

Note that the user could also cast them on other people, possibly to make them appear less attractive. In any such cases normal resistance rolls (as dictated by the rules of your preferred magic system) should apply.

The spells involved, being not particularly powerful, can effect only cosmetic changes (colour of hair, eyes, or skin, length or colour of eyelashes, colour or fullness of lips, etc), mask minor imperfections (such as unsightly spots or birthmarks), or add attractive markings (such as beauty spots). All effects are however relatively short lived, typically lasting no more than an hour or so (and often much less).

The spells do not (and indeed cannot) in any way alter the basic shape and structure of their target, thus the target always remains recognisable for who and what he/she truly is.

Furthermore the spells work only on living creatures, any attempt to use them on non-living matter (such as clothes or armour) automatically fails. Thus the targets’ clothes remain unaffected (if you want your clothes to look good, you’ll just have to wear good-looking clothes). Note that this means appearance enhancers cannot be used to appear unarmed while sneaking into the king’s bedroom carrying a heavy crossbow, so don’t try it.

Note: Some "always on" versions exist that maintain the illusions indefinitely (or until the user specifies a change). However these require a piece of Crystallised Dragon Blood to power the effects, making them prohibitively expensive and available only to the very richest people.

Of Dragons and Legends

No real dragon has walked the earth nor flown in the skies for over a thousand years (or, to be more precise, if they have nobody has ever seen one) and they are now thought to be extinct.

This is hardly surprising if the tales are to be believed, for all the legends mark them as the most violent and bloodthirsty creatures ever to have existed.

A dragon, so the legends claim, would kill man and beast alike, merely for the pleasure of watching it die. Even other dragons enjoyed no immunity from their predations, for they were highly territorial, excessively aggressive, and almost certainly cannibalistic.

In truth such a creature should never have existed, and in any rational universe they would certainly never have evolved in the first place. Indeed, this very fact has been used by many a theologian as proof positive of the existence of the gods.

Origin

Given their aggressive and predatory nature dragons where almost always in conflict, either with humans or with other dragons, and an awful lot of dragon blood got spelled over the centuries. Of course most of this simply seeped into the earth and decayed away, much like the blood of any other creature.

Dragons however were strange innately magical creatures and, very rarely, if the conditions were precisely right, the blood just might set to form a dragon blood crystal (in much the same fashion that tree sap can set to form amber).

Description

Dragon blood crystal is a quartz-like crystal ranging in colour from deep purple to jet-black. The crystals are always extremely small (rarely more than a 1/4 oz in weight), probably because they are extremely brittle and tend to break at the slightest shock.

Even in their raw state dragon blood crystals are quite pretty, but if cut and set by a skilled jeweller they can become astonishingly beautiful. This combined with their rarity means that gem quality crystals can be at least as expensive as diamonds.

Most crystals however are not suitable for jewellery, but they still have considerable value for their inherent magical properties.

Magical Properties

Dragon blood crystals do not actually do anything directly. Instead they act as a kind of magical battery, collecting and storing magic for future use.

To use a crystal the magician must first "charge" it up from a mana source of some kind. This could be anything (the ambient magical field, some arcane machine, the magicians’ life force, whatever) depending on how your preferred magic system works. The crystal is then "linked to" or incorporated into a magical artefact on order to power the magic.

Without a power source of some kind no magical artefact can work, so these crystals are essential for the creation of "always on" type items (such as Spirit Beacons). You simply incorporate a crystal into the design, charge it up, and the item will work as long as the crystal has power. Note that you will of course have the recharge the crystal from time to time.

Authors Note

I cannot really claim full credit for this item, since mana storage device are a mainstay of several magic systems. However, I do think it adds an interesting atmosphere to the magical world as well as a kind of internal logic to the magic system. So, for what it’s worth, here it is.

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Freetext

I was in a game with a GM that had a Masters in History, who made is a point to mention that the local peasants didn't have wheelbarrows. The rest of the players just shrugged that off but I knew that the GM was trying to tell us the peasants were on the knife edge of starvation.

All that from wheelbarrows? Yes, because before the invention of the wheelbarrow it took two men to carry that load. In it's time the wheelbarrow was the most explosive production multiplier that the peasantry could get their hands on.

This is worth two tips: One about the power of the Wheelbarrow and the other is the moral of the story...that people need to know the point you are trying to make.